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Betsy's Backyard Blog

Betsy Freese is an Executive Editor for Meredith Agrimedia, including Living the Country Life and Successful Farming. She grew up on a fruit farm in Maryland (see www.strawberryfarm.com) and has an agricultural journalism degree from Iowa State University. She and her husband, Bob, a veterinarian, live on a farm in Iowa where they raise sheep, hay, corn, and soybeans.

Our county fair is this week, and I'm showing flowers and vegetables. Our family was also in charge of working the pork producers' food stand one night, so Caroline came home to help. Our oldest son, Nowlan, also came home for a visit and helped me dig and sort potatoes. Here are photos from the week.

Cramming my flower entries into the Prius took some engineering. Nothing got crushed on the way, thanks to Caroline.

Caroline just completed a fascinating art project in our farm shop. She made a self portrait (of sorts) as a collage made out of 20,000 Skittles. This is an Iowa State University focus grant and the final result, once framed, will hang in the Memorial Union next April. I hope the candy survives!

Caroline first drew her portrait to use as a guide, and then researched all the possible Skittles colors. Unlike M&Ms, you can't buy individual colors of Skittles, so she had to buy an assortment of flavors and sort the colors. She made her hair blue to contrast with the yellow background.

She painted an outline of the picture on two sheets of plywood and positioned a camera on a ladder.

She starts attaching Skittles to the face first. She quickly realized how much glue the project is going to take.

The face is almost done.

Time to work on the green shirt.

The shirt is done.

The left board is done. The background was originally going to be yellow, but Caroline decided orange accents would make it more interesting.

Finishing the hair.

Finishing the yellow and orange background. She is now weeks into the project. Some of the color on the face has started to fade and ants have sucked the sugar out of some Skittles. The shop is struggling to stay cool in July heat. Caroline researches and tests clear coatings and finds one to spray on the collage.

The project is complete! (Frame to come later.) We carry the two halfs into the house for safekeeping.

Last night, Bob and I hosted the Drive Across America team from American Agri-Women (AAW), the nation's largest coalition of farm, ranch, and agribusiness women. It was so nice to meet Sue McCrum (right), AAW president, Doris Mold (left), president elect, and Doris' daughter, Sarah, 10. Sue is a potato farmer from Maine, and Doris is a dairy farmer from Minnesota.

AAW is driving across America, visting farms and ag businesses, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the organization and honor the important role women play in agriculture. The trip started on June 3rd in Maine and will eventually reach most of the states except Alaska and Hawaii. Sue will be on the majority of the journey. Doris and Sarah joined the ride a week ago. Farm women will take turns driving the truck, which has already gone 5,000 miles on this journey.

Bob and I spent last week on my home farm in Maryland and a few days on the beach in Delaware. Enjoy some highlights!

Mom and I had been picking blueberries on my cousin Jen's farm and she was heading to the house to make a pie. Dad had the berries in his utility vehicle up ahead.

One of our boxes. So beautiful.

Up in the black raspberry field, Dad is supervising as Bob and friends Cooky and Kenny Howett pick.

My raspberry box after just a few minutes in the field.

I finally got Bob away from the sheep and hay fields. Although, on the drive through rural Delaware on the way to the beach he saw a farmer baling and stacking a rack of wheat straw. "We should stop and I could help him," Bob said seriously. Later, on the beach, he said, "I wonder if that guy finished that field?" And, "If you would have let me stop it would have been the perfect day."

The end of a perfect day for me.

My sister-in-law Lana's delightful new patio made of paving stones Dad found at an auction.

I planted a pollinator garden this spring and it's doing okay. It's weedy, but flowers are starting to peek through and bloom. By leaving the back half of my garden to the bees and butterflies, I have enough time to weed the vegetables in the front half. Here are some photos.

These milkweed come up every year. I used to pull them out as weeds. Now I watch the monarch butterflies feed on the blooms.

The front of my garden. It's been a great year for potatoes and onions.

Bob staked the tomatoes this year.

My ditch lilies are blooming. They don't attract pollinators, but they are cheerful.

Bob and I hosted the Meredith Agrimedia staff -- Successful Farming, Agriculture.com, Living the Country Life -- last week at a summer kick-off party. There was a fishing derby at our pond and BBQ dinner in the farm shop. Thank you to Bob for cleaning out the shop!

The temperature at the pond was a muggy 95 degrees. The evening ended with a storm blowing in and dumping an inch of rain, along with a little hail. Fun times!

Art director Matt Strelecki, right, removes the hook so the bass can live to see another day.

Radio editor Jodi Henke (standing under her tent) provided worms for bait and the prizes, including a beer can bobber.

Business editor Dan Looker used an antique tackle box and fly fishing gear. The hat appears to be an antique, as well. Dan waded out into the pond until someone spotted a huge snapping turtle watching him from a few feet away.

The Morton farm shop where the food was served is shown behind Dan and below.

This was a few days after the party, when Caroline set up a secret art project in the clean shop.

Last week I toured Blood Dairy, a third-generation farm in central Iowa. Kevin and Holly Blood, along with their son, Alex, and his wife, Melissa, own and operate the business.

I was especially interested to tour this farm because my husband grew up just down the road.

Kevin Blood took over the family farm from his dad in 1990 when they were milking 100 cows. Today, the farm milks 2,200 cows with another 600 being added this year. There are 22 full-time employees in addition to family members.

A new 900-foot free stall barn, just like the one I photographed below, is under construction now. A new milking parlor with a flash chiller is also being built. Cows are milked three times a day. "We never stop milking," says Kevin. He says cows produce 10% more when milked three times vs two times a day. "They want to be milked every eight hours," he says.

He beds the barns with 12 inches of sand and the barns are cleaned each time the cows are milked. Fans and sprinklers keep the cows cool in hot weather.

Most of the milk goes to Des Moines the day it comes from the cow and is on store shelves the next morning. All milk is tested on the farm and again at the Anderson Erickson Dairy processing plant.

Holly Blood is in charge of the calves. Six to 10 are born every day on the farm. They are fed 1 gallon of colostrum and the females are moved in a special van to a neighboring farm owned by Cory and Shannon Eldridge. New calf barns were built there two years ago (a photo of one room is below). Local farmers Todd and Sharon Kline buy all the bull calves at birth and raise them for steers.

The average cow on the Blood farm stays for six years, although some are 10 or 12 years old. "As long as they continue to produce they are welcome to stay," says Kevin.

All manure from the cows is injected into the soil as natural fertilizer on 3,500 acres of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa grown by the family.

On Thursday morning, June 4, a line of women snaked out of the National Pork Board tent on the Iowa State Fairgrounds concourse in Des Moines. Inside was Chris Soules, star of three reality television shows -- The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Dancing with the Stars -- and now a bachelor farmer growing corn and soybeans and raising hogs in Iowa.

I sat down with Soules to talk about the America’s Pig Farmer of the Year award he helped the Pork Board promote this year.

First -- about Whitney Bischoff, his ex-fiancé from The Bachelor -- Soules said the decision to break off the engagement last month had nothing to do with his farm or whether she wanted to be a farmer's wife. The relationship just ran its course and fizzled out. "We are still friends," he said. There were enough attractive young farm women standing in line for a selfie with Soules, his prospects didn't seem dire.

Now, on to pork production. Soules and his family feed 20,000 pigs a year on contract to TriOak Foods. Last winter he met with the Pork Board about being a spokesperson for the new pig farmer award. "I am somewhat famous," he said, "and that gives me a great platform to connect to consumers."

He says his time in the celebrity spotlight showed him "how little understanding people had of what we did in farming." He wants to help change that. "We have a great story to tell and farmers are not always willing to tell it."

All types of hog farms were welcome to enter the new award (applications are now closed), and Soules said he hopes all producers feel they are an important part of the pork industry. He pointed out that his sister raises grass-fed beef. "It takes every kind of farmer to feed hungry people," said Soules.

During our interview, a man interrupted Soules for an autograph. He said his friend worked at a packing plant in Columbus Junction and "she saw your pigs come in one day and freaked out." She couldn't attend Pork Expo because she had to work. Soules asked her name and then spent a few minutes composing a lengthy note to this woman, who is probably freaking out again today after receiving his note.

You may catch Soules later on another reality TV series. Stay tuned. No matter where he goes, he will have agriculture and food production in mind.

Bob cut the alfalfa on the last day of May. It was way past full bloom and weedy, but a wet spring left him no choice in timing. In fact, the weather forcast is now calling for storms tomorrow, so it will probably get rained on before he can bale. This morning he said he "didn't care," but I didn't believe him.

One change this year -- he ran the tedder through the hay right after he cut it. Usually he waits a day or two.